Break down the boundaries in Ordnance Survey

The government's decision to consult the public on its reorganisation of Ordnance Survey - announced with the budget last month - is proving popular with would-be users. The proposed reorganisation, however, is not.

Comments on the web page, where the consultation is open for feedback are running overwhelmingly in favour of more freedom for OS data.

Among the suggestions is one from Julian Todd, who runs the Public Whip site - a parliamentary informatics project. He suggests that OS should release the "full stack" of digital data for a small area of the country into the public domain. "This gives users and applications writers a complete understanding of the quality and nature of the data in a way that they can safely integrate into experimental products," Todd suggests.

He sees other benefits, too: "For OS, the financial risk can at most be the revenue gained from the mapping in that area - which can be accurately measured. The possible gains include the development of new products that can use the rest of the OS data that would not have existed without this free area to work with."

A constant refrain is the demand that OS should make data about boundaries - between counties, parishes and parliamentary constituencies - available for unrestricted use. "Why should I have to buy OS products to find where these boundaries are?" asks Chris Hill, in one of the first comments made on the site.

Many of the comments suggest that the Free Our Data campaign's aims are shared by those who care about OS's future direction: many commenters call for the release of all OS's data as a public good.

What is unpopular with commenters is OS's insistence that it retains the intellectual property ownership of any products created while using its products - so-called "derived data". "These derived data rules are a huge barrier to sharing geospatial data for UK locations between organisations," says Anthony Cartmell of the web developer Fonant.

Peter Miller of Ito makes a note about the proposal that changes will have "minimal impact on existing commercial users": "The best way to minimise something is to stop it, and I assume the lawyers acting for the OS will try to do just that," he says.

Ministers are understood to be watching the comments very closely, with a view to tailoring the OS's final strategy around them. Those who want to see the free data cause succeed are urged to take part - before time runs out.